Gartner and T-Systems, a German provider of digital solutions and information technology (IT) services, have unveiled a study titled "Key Considerations for Your IoT Ecosystem"). According to the two companies' analysis, the Internet of Things (IoT) segment should continue to grow rapidly, making it crucial that businesses choose an IoT platform that can support new applications.

Such platforms, considered the backbone of the Internet of Things, represent a new market segment still in the making, the companies conclude. The study defines IoT platforms as software solutions capable of technically managing IoT data. "This market is expected to grow significantly over the next few years," the report says, "because of the features and platforms that bring even more value to multiple business processes."

Given this context, the authors write, one question that should gain strength, along with the growth of this market, is how a company should define whether a certain platform is ideal for its business needs. According to the study, the choice of platform should align with a company's IoT strategy and business model. This definition can come from a study regarding the problems that the firm wants to solve, as well as a prioritization of the services to be implemented.

Regardless of a particular business's demands, the study notes, all companies will require platforms that guarantee flexibility and expansion of their developments. In this scenario, the authors explain, the best choice would be a platform based on an ecosystem of multiple providers and solutions, combined into a single, simple-to-use space.

Thus, the study indicates, there are three essential functionalities of a good IoT platform: application support for the customization of IoT solutions; data consolidation and storage, intended to capture and store data and generate insights; and connectivity management, to automatically associate systems, networks and equipment. Because of this, the authors cite as a priority the development of new services for IoT platforms—which, to meet a company's demands, requires that corporate IT leaders design and develop extensible and open platforms for the use of external IoT services, in addition to deploying pricing models that ensure a rapid return on investment from a standardized IoT platform.

Add to this the need to seek the development of new IoT services, such as analytical libraries, data monetization, governance tools and advanced security that strengthen a company's platform. T-Systems believes in open ecosystems to accelerate the entire IoT market, according to Ideval Munhoz, the president of T-Systems Brazil. "At the same time," Munhoz states, "we want to act as enablers, so our customers build solutions based on IoT products that offer the greatest convenience possible."

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